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I’m currently trying to wrap my head around my aunt’s diagnosis. Cancer the most dreaded of all the C words. My heart is wounded and I’m trying to google ways to support someone who has cancer…
I called her and I meant what I said : I’ll be there if she wants or needs me. I’ll drive her to appointments and make her food and go on errand runs, I’ll do anything possible to make this the best situation for her.
I don’t want to lose her
I’ll update later when I’m in a better state
Positive vibes, prayers always welcome and appreciated
(Unless you trying to pray my gay away of course)

So imagine this, today I sit hunched over my laptop typing away at an effort to make sense of this US 2016 Presidential election. Where am I you ask? Well my local Starbucks of course! I know I know, local is always better! BUT here me out: 1.) I am nearly broke with Starbucks gift moneys on hand 2.) Starbucks has quite recently changed their bathrooms from the binary “men” and “women” to unisex/either or; who knew the bathroom fiasco could have been fixed so easily and quickly, am I right??
Recently, as in 30 minutes or so ago, I finally conceded and listened to Kaine and HRC give the big concession speech.

My most prominent reaction would be this: what a classy lady, Queen Bee of my heart. And also the silent tears that kept on rolling down my face as I was driving and listening to HRC speak…..

My heart feels broken. I’ve felt this slow pain and deep hurt buildup in my heart since late election night, when the results were not looking as hopeful as others had predicted. So around 11:30pm I got in my car to drive….and kept driving because driving makes me feel like I have some semblance of control over my own life, like I can go anywhere and do anything and be anyone….

When others have outright said I’m just a sore loser or being over dramatic, all I can say is this:

I am an openly gay married woman

I am a person who is Autistic

I am tattooed

I am educated and an informed American citizen

I am constantly silenced, ignored, and walked all over by friends/peers/family/etc.

I would not be crying if it were not for victors being so blatantly racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic….in fact when I watched a clip of Rachel Maddow being barely able to hold herself together discussing future VP Pence, I was realized my fears were completely vindicated and that I should infact be concerned and deeply worried.

HRC promised improvement and expansion on services for Autistic persons and their families, she spoke of having the backs of the LGBT community, she spoke of how receiving an education shouldn’t be such a heavy burden that weighs on the people my age (and those to come) simply because we are not rich and easy targets, she spoke of America as a safe haven and to take pride in our diversity….

To get past myself now, HRC was for the disabled, the Muslims, the immigrants, the Latinx, the working class, the women of our country.

I’ll attempt to wrap this up now by saying I am your ally, “the Other American” in the sense that if I see you being harassed on the bus for your hijab, I will step up and defend you, when someone spray paints “dyke” or “fag” on your car I’ll be there to hold you in your rage and sadness, I will not sit back and let the haters fill the void with their harassment and crimes. I will be there for you, because I love you and I stand by you as a fellow American and as a decent f***ing human being.

So I have recently discovered I need to blog to save my remaining sanity or to regain sanity!

I ended up back home with my parents, aunt, brother, grandpa etc

I would NEVER recommend this to anyone (not even an enemy…) unless it was really necessary aka you will be homeless now or in the immediate future

Don’t do it to please your family, think that you could help them out, WHATEVER

Seriously it is my wife and I, and our 3 beautiful cat babies confined to a single room that neither gets enough heat in the winter OR enough cooling in the summer….

Originally the plan was to move an hour south to Kalamazoo to finish my degree at university, we had the housing lined up, the apartment number in hand

ALL WAS SET AND ALL WAS GOOD

Then I had sneaky doubts and guilt…I hadn’t lived with or near my family in 5-6 years…I was missing out and certain person(s) were having health issues..

I THOUGHT i could live at home and help out when they needed me and peace (or indifference ) would reign supreme….oh the naivete

SO now I’m commuting a minimum of 4 days a week to a university that is 35 minutes away and well….not living the dream.

From my current location I have to drive 20-25 minutes to the closest chain coffee shop and pretty much everything is like that….I have a doctor’s appointment 20 minutes away….need to go to the grocery store another 20 minutes

I do not have much privacy at home nor do I have a place to do homework….

which has led to increasing trips BACK to my uni to do homework for hours on the weekend OR to coffeehouses, especially one that has a bottomless mug gimmick attached to it, while increasing hostilities grow at home…..my mom resents me being gone so much while my dad thinks I have serious cash because we are gone so much (far from the truth)

ONE example (because there are many)

I do errands, clean up after myself, run errands for my mom sometimes multiple times almost always out of the way…..obviously we do our own laundry, and my wife does chores as well around the house. Other examples: Over the summer when we were packing to leave our independence….apartment….. we helped clean and ready my family’s house for an appraisal then months after that we helped close the pool….

Yet for some reason, my family thinks we do nothing and we don’t get the satisfaction of hearing a simple “thank you” very often at all….

and there are others living there for free way past the expiration of needing to live there but i constantly feel singled out and my wife does to, yet there are no defined rules on what we need to do….

TYPICALLY right now I would go on a rant about my brother and how he didn’t help for the house appraisal or the pool closing, and any chores he says he’ll do typically fall to my wife for completion but…oh well right, why even keep on that train?

The bottom line of my journey so far….I have learned I will never live up to my family’s expectations nor do I even want to try anymore. The standards set for me are infinitely higher and the expectations are never ending from any given individual person like my mom or dad, to my aunt or grandpa. I can’t please everyone, especially NEVER at once….

I mean realistically folks, how I can I live up to standards and expectations that are constantly on the rise, with a people who are NEVER happy or even satisfied with what I do?!

So right now I’m stumbling through a piece on sexual harassment on the internet…..

At first I was very stubborn to this idea that sexual harassment online could be potentially harmful then I wondered….seriously I doubted the validity of any information that could come from this article that I’m reading for my Sociology of Gender class (I pretty much never question my professor or her authority; I mean she has a PHD and has read 100s of books on gender, WHO AM I TO QUESTION THAT?!?!)

AND then I wondered could perhaps my recent incident online be connected to SH?!

So I found an article that a “progressive left wing feminist” person on my friend list had liked on FB.

Essentially this “feminist” had liked a criticism of an article on rape and blurred lines, a particularly angry woman saying that the raped demographic in this article were not actually raped and could not nor should they cry wolf…obviously they hadn’t even been raped.

Why would a self-proclaimed feminist woman from the 21st century buy into this crap one might ask?

Because the article itself was written by a woman (and with other women in mind from similar situations) that had technically not taken away consent but visibly did not want sex. No these weren’t one stand situations but rather with a well-established partner….

Perhaps I’m doing a poor example of describing this reaction/ criticism of the women and the actual article itself.

From my experience, in my first serious relationship that was a “straight” relationship because I was in fact with a hetero, cis male, this happened to me quite often.

I was not suffering from mere regret of having bad sex (as the critical woman stated) but rather I had an established friendship with my then boyfriend which then turned into a real relationship of which he knew me very well.

There were lets say…a dozen or more times that during sex my ex boyfriend noticed I was visibly uncomfortable and did not seem to want sex because of my facial expressions, body language, and lack of any positive words, sounds, etc

Sometimes he would even ask if we should continue….usually he didn’t care what my response was or if i even had one. good, bad, etc grossly enough I have heard the argument, “well I’m almost done so…..”

And it made me so mad that these feminist women of today were arguing that wasn’t a gray area, that couldn’t even be considered rape…..

I hadn’t given my continuous consent, sometimes I didn’t even know what I had wanted, nor did I have the time or space to decide my consent seemed to be decided for me.

Maybe this doesn’t seem like “real rape” to some of you as well, I can’t change that for you.

All I can give is my opinion, personal experiences and let it be known via some media that I have had sexual experiences that existed in a weird gray area, and at some points bled its way into a raped experience.

All I can say is that in the past, I was disempowered and my partner knew me well and would even realize when he was overstepping some boundary he shouldn’t have been….

Because yes I believe it’s completely possible for a partner to know you well enough to know you do not want sex and they shouldn’t push it.

End of story I actually reported this to FB to be reviewed because there was a woman saying that these women were lying about being raped and they were just dissatisfied with their sex lives and they shutup and stop complaining because it’s nothing like being raped. And FB did nothing….they supposedly reviewed my request and said well its not really hateful or sexist or anything…..have a good day! I even wrote them back saying they should not be tolerating sexism, discrimination, and making rape into a punchline

I never report to FB either. But I would do it again.

Is not rape about consent and power folks? Is not rape that can happen to anyone in any context? IF A SPOUSE can be raped, than how is this too not an example of rape?